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Tag Archives: Missouri
Georgia Runoff
The last election of 2022 will conclude on Tuesday with the runoff election for U.S. Senator in Georgia. While there are still some races that will go to recounts, all of the statewide and congressional races seem to be outside the margin at which a recount could make a difference. (There are three races with margins between 500 and 600 votes — Arizona Attorney General, California Thirteenth District, and Colorado Third District. In the Minnestoa Senate recount in 2008, the net swing from the original results to the recount results was 450 votes with an additional 87 votes gained in the election contest. The closest of the three races going to recount is 511. While other recounts have resulted in bigger swings, they were in races with bigger margins and Minnesota remains the largest swing that changed the results of a race.
The significance of the Senate race is not quite as big as it was in 2021 due to the Republicans apparently taking the House (but the Republican’s inability to reach a consensus on the next Speaker will be the subject of a future post) and the fact that the Democrats already have 50 seats. But the result still matters for five key reasons.
First, the additional seat will alter the composition of committees. With a 50-50 Senate, the committees are evenly divided. While the rules currently allow a bill or nomination to proceed to the Senate floor on a tie vote, a 51-49 Senate would result in the Democrats having a majority on the committees.
Posted in Elections, General Election Forecast, Senate
Also tagged Florida, Georgia, Herschel Walker, Joe Manchin, Krysten Sinema, Montana, Ohio, Raphael Warnock, Texas, West Virginia
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The Midterms — Preview (Part 2)
The first states with polls to close are mostly in the Eastern Time Zone. In the early states, we have two governor’s races (Georgia and Florida), four Senate races (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio), and seven House seats (1 in North Carolina, 3 in Ohio, and 3 in Virginia) that could be close. There are also several seats that are likely to flip solely because of the new maps (4 flipping red in Florida, 1 flipping red in Georgia, and 2 flipping blue in North Carolina).
But the big closing time is 7 p.m. Central ST. The remaining polls will close in Florida, and most of the polls will close in Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota, and Texas. And all of the polls will close in Alabama (except for a very small portion that closed an hour earlier), Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. In short, when added to the states that close before 7 p.m., the polls will be closed in roughly half of the country by 7:01 p.m. (Of course, polls closed merely means that individuals need to be in line to vote at 7 p.m. Because there are typically people in line to vote, voting might actually continue in some urban precincts for a very long time after 7 p.m. which will delay counting in those areas.)
Starting with Alabama, there are no races that are likely to be close at the state or federal level. If the Supreme Court follows the Voting Rights Act, Democrats will probably pick up an additional seat in 2024, but the current maps which a district court correctly held violated the Voting Rights Act is in place for the 2022 election, and the 6-1 Republican advantage will remain in place for the next Congress. There are a lot of propositions on the ballot in Alabama, the most significant of which requires changes to election law to be adopted at least six months prior to a general election.
Posted in Elections, General Election Forecast, House of Representatives, Senate
Also tagged Connecticut, D.C., Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas
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Missouri Senate Primary 2022
We are about five weeks out from the August 2 primary in Missouri. With Roy Blunt deciding that it is time to move on, there are multiple candidates in both party’s primary. While Missouri has been gradually moving to the right, there is a chance that Democrats could pull out a win, but a lot depends on what happens on August 2.
To some degree, the Republican primary in Missouri is an echo of what we have seen in Ohio and Pennsylvania. With a large number of candidates and no clear favorite, we are looking at the potential for a very close race which in turn means that Donald Trump could very easily impact the result by putting his thumb on the scale (as opposed to the recent primary in Alabama where Trump had little noticeable impact on the race when he first endorsed Mo Brooks, less impact when he rescinded that endorsement, and no impact when he decided to endorse Kate Britt at the last second to get a cheap win for his endorsement scorecard).
There are twenty-one people running for the Republican nomination. For the purposes of the Trump endorsement race, there are three groups of candidates: the field, the chase pack, and the lead pack. The field consists of fifteen candidates with no state-wide name recognition and no significant resources. Each of these candidates would be lucky to get 2-3% of the vote. But each vote for the field is a vote that is not going to the top six candidates.
Posted in General Election Forecast, Senate
Also tagged 2022 Senate Election, Eric Greitens
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Redistricting — Missouri
The 2011 redistricting in Missouri gave us some very weird maps. In the Fifth District, we have the “dead lizard” district in which the Republican suburbs of Kansas City in Eastern Jackson County were carved out and moved in with the Sixth District (northern Missouri) which is mostly on the other side of the Missouri River. Meanwhile, some of the more Democratic suburbs of Kansas City (and the part of Kansas City north of the Missouri River) became the core of the Fifth District as well as what were some Democratic leaning counties east of Kansas City along the Missouri River that had historically been part of the Fourth District (western Missouri). In the Third District (eastern Missouri), you have the “claw” surrounding the St. Louis area on three sides. The Second District (suburban St. Louis) took in some of the more conservative suburbs of St. Louis in St. Charles County. The 2011 maps were the product of a General Assembly in which the Republicans were just shy of a supermajority and needed to get a small number of Democratic votes to overcome the Democratic governor’s veto.
In this next round of redistricting, not a lot has changed in terms of population. The First District (St. Louis and its inner suburbs) has continued to shrink relative to the rest of the state and will need about 35,000 people. The Eighth District (southeastern Missouri) will need around 7,000 people. Meanwhile, the Seventh District (southwestern Missouri including Springfield and Branson) will need to shed around 14,000 people. There are a lot of split precincts in the current map, so the exact surpluses of the remaining districts (and the exact shortfall in the Eighth) is hard to determine, but everything will need to be shifted somewhat.
What has changed is that there is now a Republican governor. While the Republicans do not have to make any concessions to Democrats to pass a bill, there will be some restraints caused by the need to comply with the Voting Rights Act. In other words, the Republicans are unable to carve up the two Democratic districts to get a clean 8-0 sweep of the state. But they can try to draw lines that improve the chances of keeping a 6-2 majority.
Posted in Elections, House of Representatives
Also tagged 2020 Census, redistricting
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Redistricting 2021 — The Numbers
On Monday, four days ahead of its latest target date and almost four months behind the statutory date, the Census Bureau released the national and state-level results from the Census including the apportionment numbers that determine how many representatives each get. As can be expected, there are multiple different tables summarizing the data in different ways for us number geeks.
The bottom line table shows the apportionment population (both those living in the state and those residing overseas — like military personnel — who call that state home), the number of representatives that each state is getting, and the change in representation. We will get back to the change in a minute, but the big level number is that the apportionment population is slightly over 331 million. As such, the average size (mean) of each congressional district is just under 761 thousand. Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming have fewer people than the average congressional district. While the apportionment formula does not work for calculating the population needed for the first representative, even Wyoming has enough population to be entitled to three-quarters of a representative.
If, D.C. and Puerto Rico were states, Puerto Rico would be just ahead of Utah (which has four representatives) and just behind Connecticut (which has five representatives) and D.C. would be between Vermont and Alaska. Given that Puerto Rico is only slightly larger than Utah (which was not close to getting a fifth representative and far enough behind Connecticut, Puerto Rico would be due for four representatives. If both were states, the five states that would lose a representative would have been Oregon, Colorado, and Montana (all of which gained a seat), California (which lost a seat), and Minnesota (which barely avoided losing a seat). The chart of priority values that allows us to consider the impact of adding Puerto Rico and D.C. also shows that Minnesota barely held onto its last seat and New York barely lost its seat. Apparently, given the formula, Minnesota would have lost that seat if it had 24 fewer people, and New York would have kept its seat if it had 89 more people. (The disparity in numbers is caused by the fact that the two states have different number of seats.
Posted in House of Representatives
Also tagged 2020 Census, apportionment, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, redistricting, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia
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Election Night Preview — Part 7 (Referendums)
The first six posts in this series have focused mostly on federal elections with a handful of Governor’s races. Of course, there are also state legislative races, some local (mostly county) races, and referendums.
While I am sure that somebody has a complete list of every local bond issue or city charter issue, this post will focus on the state-wide issues. More specifically, this post will focus primarily on the changes that will make structural changes to the political system. It’s not that votes on legalization of marijuana or changes to the criminal justice system are unimportant, it’s just that many of these referendums are the results of the failure of the elected politicians to address these issues. and it’s the structural changes that may (or may not) make legislatures more responsive to these types of issues.
Several states are considering changes to the structure of elections In Massachusetts, voters will have the option of following in Maine’s footsteps by adopting ranked-choice voting for most state and federal elections (except for President).
Posted in 2020 General Election
Also tagged Alaska, campaign finance reform, Florida, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, Ranked Choice Voting, redistricting, term limits, top-two primaries, Virginia
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Election Night Preview — Part 2 (8 PM to 9 PM EST)
As noted in the previous post, by 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, we should have a significant amount of precincts being reported in the two earliest states (Kentucky and Indiana) and should be starting to get some counties reporting votes in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and Vermont. During this hour, the counts in those states should be increasing. By 9 p.m., we should be seeing either some projection in those states or an indication that the states are too close too call. We may also be getting an indication in some of those states of how many absentee votes might remain to be counted (which could determine whether it will be possible to make any projection in those states on election night).
While it would be nice if we could get calls in a state like Virginia early in this hour, the bigger question as the hour goes will be the types of swings that we are seeing in these states. Virginia in 2016 was a leading indicator as we were just not getting strong results compared to 2012. So as this hour goes along and the networks start looking at the maps of the state, the key thing to pay attention to is how the numbers are comparing to 2016. Even if the networks aren’t comfortable in calling a state yet, if the results are showing that Trump is underperforming in red parts of a state (i.e. rural counties) and Biden is overperforming in the suburbs, then that is a good sign for the rest of the evening as Trump only one by the slimmest of margins in 2016 and any erosion in his support could prove fatal.
This hour has the most states close. You have partial closures in Florida (the rest of the state closed an hour earlier), Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota, and Texas. While a significant part of South Dakota will close an hour later, the polls close for most of the population in Kansas, Michigan, and Texas at 8 p.m. Eastern. In addition to these states, polls for the entire state close at 8 p.m. Eastern in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.
Posted in 2020 General Election, General Election Forecast
Also tagged Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas
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2020 Delegate Math — March 10
There is just a little bit of room between Super Tuesday and March 10 for everyone to catch their breath. Over the past seven days, over half of the candidates have dropped out, and we are left with three candidates (Joe Biden, Tulsi Gabbard, and Bernie Sanders.)
While we are down to three candidates, one word of warning is appropriate. As we saw on Super Tuesday, some states have no excuse early voting or mail-in ballots. On Super Tuesday, we saw some significant differences between the early vote count and the “election day” count. Simply put, people who voted early may have voted for a candidate who was no longer actively running. It is unclear if any of these candidates will ultimately win a delegate, but some of these candidates did get a significant number of votes in some states. The extra seven days should lessen this effect, but there could be — depending on the state — a significant number of voters who voted before February 28th, and some of these voters went with one of the five candidates who are no longer running.
There are seven contests which will conclude on March 10. (I use the term conclude because one of them — Democrats Abroad — is a party-run primary in which the polls are open for almost one week and others allow early voting.) Besides Democrats Abroad, the other six contests are Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Washington. While nominally styled as a caucus, North Dakota is a party-run primary. Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, and Washington are state-run primaries. (Washington like California relies heavily on mail-in ballots which can cause a delay in getting final results.) Under the rules of the Democratic Party, all of these contests are binding and delegates will be allocated based on the votes cast for each candidate.
Posted in 2020 Convention, 2020DNC, Delegates, Primary Elections
Also tagged 2020 Delegate Selection Plans, 2020 Pesidential Primary, Democrats Abroad, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota, Washington
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Update on Missouri’s Anti-choice laws
With so-many Republican-controlled states passing laws designed to make abortion illegal, it’s going to be hard over the next several years to track what is happening with each of these laws as they potentially make their way to the Supreme Court. (And the moderate conservatives are going to try to avoid this issue as long as they can.) But I can, at least, track what is happening at the local level.
Missouri passed one of these laws this year — House Bill 126,
First, some brief background on Missouri’s legislative process. Missouri’ legislature meets in an annual session that runs from early January until mid-May (technically, the session ends at the end of May, but all work on legislation must end by mid-May with the last two weeks for the Speaker/President Pro Tempore to sign the official copies of the bills that pass). The Governor then has until Mid-July to sign or veto the bills (with an earlier deadline for bills passed early in the session). The Missouri Constitution generally treats an unsigned bill as if the Governor had signed it. (In other words, the Governor can’t block a bill by leaving it unsigned.) Generally speaking, new laws take effect on August 28, but — by a two-thirds vote in both Houses — the legislature can agree that there is an “emergency” for having it take effect at a different time.
Posted in Civil Rights, Judicial
Also tagged Abortion, Louisiana, Supreme Court
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